The inverse: upvotes are penalized if the voter comes from a direct link from a non-HN source (e.g. Twitter), so people direct others to vote via /newest.
So, I see a submission I think is interesting and direct link it from my Twitter account; the submission is penalized on every upvote it receives through my link?
That just seems like a silly thing to do. Especially since there's an obvious way around it.
Not if I wanted to get people to engage in the discussion about the submission. Most of the time I'm just as or more interested in the discussion than the article. It's why I participate instead of using HN as a news feed.
Interesting. How smart are they about this? My HN flow involves always voting from the comments page, even though I got there from the front page or /newest. Does that mean I'm triggering the penalty?
That just seems like a silly thing to do. Especially since there's an obvious way around it.